Visual Art Techniques in Lev Tolstoy's Fiction
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Color, Line, and Narrative: Visual Art Techniques in Lev Tolstoy’s Fiction By © 2018 Megan H. Luttrell M.A., University of Kansas, 2013 B.A., University of Vermont, 2010 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Slavic Languages and Literature, and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chair: Ani Kokobobo ________________________________ Vitaly Chernetsky ________________________________ John Pultz ________________________________ Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova ________________________________ Oleksandra Wallo Date Defended: 14 December 2018 The dissertation committee for Megan Hilliard Luttrell certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Color, Line, and Narrative: Visual Art Techniques in Lev Tolstoy’s Fiction ________________________________ Chair: Ani Kokobobo Date approved: 14 December 2018 ii ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates Tolstoy’s anxiety over the written word and its ability to communicate truth to the reader. I examine how Tolstoy compensates for the shortcomings of language by borrowing techniques from painting, sculpture, and drawing, and how the visual nature of his work shifts in connection with his philosophy. I identify two visual extremes in Tolstoy’s art and thought, the juxtaposition of which sets up two ends of a spectrum upon which I measure the aesthetic gradations of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Confession, and The Death of Ivan Ilych. I call Tolstoy’s earlier aesthetic “painterly” in nature, drawing from the numerous qualities of spatial literature it contains as well as its inclusion of a rich color palette and various ekphrastic passages. I begin my discussion of this “painterly” aesthetic in an examination of the 1857 short story “Lucerne.” I then trace the shifts in Tolstoy’s visuality toward what I term his “draughtsmanly” aesthetic. This later visuality, which culminates in the 1899 novel Resurrection, features many aspects of temporal literature, such as increased reliance on plot progression, as well as a black-and-white color scheme and increased use of contrasts that give the work a sculptural feel. My project is the first in the field to explore visual art techniques in Tolstoy, and reevaluates the author’s later works that are often dismissed as aesthetically inferior to his earlier writing. I note how the changes in Tolstoy’s visual aesthetic relate to shifts in his moral and philosophical worldview, which changes from one open to questions and change, to an unshakeable and uniquely Tolstoyan understanding of life and the best way to live it. I argue that neither aesthetic is superior to the other and that both are equally representative of Tolstoy’s own personal reality at the time of each work’s creation. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been very lucky to pursue my graduate career in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Kansas. The sense of community there, the encouragement and support from faculty and my fellow graduate students, and the expertise of my professors helped make this dissertation possible. I especially want to thank my advisor, Ani Kokobobo, who has worked with me since the very beginning of my time at KU and encouraged me every step of the way. Her expertise, guidance, time, feedback, and patience are vital parts of my success and intellectual development. I also want to thank her for her compassion and support throughout some of the most tumultuous years of my life. I am proud to be her first doctoral advisee and lucky to have her as a mentor and a friend. A few other people stand out in our department as integral to the completion of this project. Thank you to Vitaly Chernetsky for his excellent classes that helped me find and hone my interest in interdisciplinary literary analysis, for going out of his way to attend my presentations at conferences, and for being someone who always has his students’ success and best interests at heart. Knowing that he believes in me has been such an inspiration. Thank you to Anna Karpusheva for always answering my Russian questions, being such a supportive friend and colleague, and for generally being a ray of sunshine in the times of discouragement, fear, and self-doubt that inevitably arise in graduate school. Thank you to Rebecca Stakun for sharing examples of her dissertation prospectus and proposal, for being someone I could look up to throughout my graduate career, and for being an encouraging and loving friend over the years. I want to thank the other members of my committee, Oleksandra Wallo, John Pultz, and Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova for their time, feedback, support, and expertise, the University of Kansas Hall Center for the Humanities for the Summer Graduate Research Fellowship, which iv allowed me to devote the summer of 2016 to my research, and the Conrad family and Norman Saul for their generous awards throughout the years that helped me attend and present at conferences around the country. I owe so much to my undergraduate advisor Kevin McKenna, who taught me Russian, nurtured my interest in Tolstoy, and continually pushed me to achieve my best. So much of my love for Russian language and literature came from my time at the University of Vermont, and it is because of Kevin’s hard work as a teacher, scholar, and mentor and his passion for the field that made the UVM Russian program such an important part of my life both personally and professionally. I want to thank my mother, Beverly Hilliard, for sharing her love of art and literature with me, for helping me become a better writer, and for instilling in me her whimsical and bizarre nature. Without the creativity that she lives and breathes, I would not have learned to see the world from the strange and new perspectives that helped formulate this dissertation’s synesthetic quality. I am grateful to my father, Dennis Luttrell, whose appreciation of and dedication to morality, humanitarianism, and the beauty and spirituality of the natural world first led me to love the work of Lev Tolstoy. I want to thank him for taking the time to read a number of Russian novels so that we could discuss them together, for supporting me in every way a person can be supported, and for believing in me, wholeheartedly, even when I stopped believing in myself. Finally, I want to thank my fiancé, Adam Guss, and my future step-son Kyan. They remind me every day that there is so much more to life beyond this dissertation. Kyan, you bring joy and new purpose to my life. Adam, you have been a fount of support, quiet encouragement, v love, and inspiration. I am so fortunate and so happy to start this new chapter of my life with you by my side. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 I. Realism ........................................................................................................................ 4 II. Two Tolstoys .............................................................................................................. 7 III. Spatial and Temporal Art .......................................................................................... 9 IV. Ekphrasis................................................................................................................. 12 ***................................................................................................................................. 17 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 20 I. Lucerne: It was not a song, but a light, masterly sketch of a song… ........................ 22 II. Resurrection ............................................................................................................. 33 ***................................................................................................................................. 43 CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................. 46 I. Plotting Tolstoy’s Gallery of Moments: Cyclical and Linear Time .......................... 48 II. The Landscape Gallery: Associative Ekphrasis ....................................................... 55 III. The Portrait Gallery: Instances of Attributive and Associative Ekphrasis ............. 60 I. The Many Faces of Napoleon ................................................................................ 63 II. Marya and Hélène: Religious Art and the Rococo ............................................... 67 IV. French Portraiture and Russian Iconography: Depictive Ekphrasis ....................... 74 vii CHAPTER THREE: ......................................................................................................... 83 I. The Failure of Words ................................................................................................. 86 II. Word and Image Collide .......................................................................................... 89 III. Painted Ladies and Wax Dolls ................................................................................ 95 IV. Didacticism in Color ............................................................................................